Talk:Evolution of birds

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Helpful link: The Origin and Evolution of Birds, by J. Alan Feduccia.

Helpful but potentially misleading, as Feduccia's views are considered somewhat fringe science these days. But as regards everything that happened not more than 60 million years ago, he's usually good. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 19:58, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I should note that in the present state the article somewhat undervalues the Cretaceous follsi record. We have found bones that apparently represent everything the less outlandish mol-clock estimates suggest that should be found, except Metaves and nobody knows whether these are not bogus. In many cases these fossils are just single isolated bones. But they are single isolated bones that are too much like Charadriiformes, proto-Procellariiformes, proto-Pelecaniformes, Galloanserae, Charadriiformes, etc to ignore. What is really underrepresented are landbirds, and there is still much debate as to why. Sylvia Hope in 2002 did a nice chapter on the Mesozoic fossil record of modern birds in the Mesozoic Birds monograph. The only drawbacks are that the analyses are qualitative rather than quantitative (which would have been too high a workload possibly), and that she still tries to assign the fossils to modern families. The latter has historically caused much of the confusion hinted at in the article - there is a good and solid record of Mesozoic Charadriiformes for example, but these are quite obviously not Charadriidae if one thinks about it, but exactly that has been claimed. And no matter whether one prefers named ranks or unranked clades, the lower-level taxa are nested with in higher-level taxa in any case. Meaning that Charadriidae evolved out of more basal Charadrii which did not have the unique autapomorphies of Charadriidae. If one looks at it this way, the evolutionary picture is as solid as a Lance Formation siltstone. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 19:58, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Birds prokaryotic?

"However, as with virtually all prokaryotic organisms, bird species are currently going extinct at a far greater rate than any possible speciation or other generation of new species."

Learn something new every day!

Now, this is a typo, right? Sheep81 05:46, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

ROFL. cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 05:51, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

However, as with virtually all eukaryotic organisms...

However, as with virtually all eukaryotic organisms, bird species are currently going extinct at a far greater rate than any possible speciation or other generation of new species.
I'd like to see some scientific references for this. While I accept that birds and mammals are under intense pressure in many parts of the world, to expand that to cover all eukaryotes, which includes seaweeds, snails, insects, trees, mosses, mushrooms, moulds, flagellate protozoans, nematodes, etc., etc., is going a bit far. I'd have thought that the vast majority of eukaryote species couldn't care less about humans since they don't interact with us at all. Slime moulds and tapeworms will surely be doing whatever they do now a million years from now quite happily. Cheers, Neale Neale Monks 20:55, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Removed. There's no need to leave patent nonsense in an article until someone proves it wrong. -- Tim Starling (talk) 17:42, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Sections

A chronological overview would be nice:

• Late Cretaceous - paleognath-neognath split, Galloanserae-Neoaves split (Coronaves-Metaves split is still not supported by robust or material evidence). First modern order-level taxa evolve; if not Coronaves-Metaves, Charadriiformes are probably the oldest Neoaves.
• Paleogene - emergence of the modern orders; some families (and maybe genera), especially of Galloanseres, paleognaths(? evidence is equivocal), possibly Charadriiformes and other "higher waterbirds" evolve. "Higher landbird" radiation starts. Many families that are now extinct. By the end of the Eocene, all living orders presumably existed as distinct lineages (earliest Passeriformes date from the Early Oligocene)
• Neogene - evolution of the living families. By the end of the Miocene, (almost?) all living genera and perhaps a few living species are present.
• Quaternary - almost exclusively microevolution, speciation etc.

Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 19:58, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

MMartyniuk. You have unilaterally removed an entry I made because you yourself do not see the relevance and because it seems to you to be a misinterpretation of the source's conclusion. You are being disrespectful and confrontational. You did not inquire of me first about your removal. I quoted a legitimate research article in accord with Wikipedia standards. If you have a problem with such material consult with me first. I will reinstate the material on "Evolution of Birds" shortly, unless you correspond with me about your concerns. I am giving you a chance to discuss. You did not extend that courtesy to me before you removed my material. Pterosaurus (talk) 23:45, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Pterosaurs' addition

User:Pterosaurus has added this text. I removed it, and he disputed the removal at Talk:Sinornithosaurus.

In a study published in 2010, P. Senter identified what he called a "Birdlike cluster" of coelurosaurians and a "Tyrannosaur cluster". He included in the Birdlike cluster: Archaeopteryx, Confuciusornis, Sapeornis, Dromaeosauridae, Troodontidae, Epidendrosaurus + Epidexipteryx, Protarchaeopteryx + Incisivosaurus and Falcarius. He included in the Tyrannosaur cluster: Tyrannosauroidea, Compsognathidae and Ornitholestes. Using classic multidimensional scaling (CMDS) he shows that the two clusters are separate.

I removed it because I don't see the relevance to the topic Evolution of birds. Is it necessary to discuss the fine details of phylogenetic analysis when their conclusions have no bearing on the origin of birds? It shouldn't be the job of this article to discuss the details of every phylogenetic tree published in their entireties, if the happen to include birds, let alone a seemingly random example. Not only that, the example can be misleading because it doesn't discuss the context or significance. What kind of study was performed, what it means for bird evolution, etc. Additionally, the paper was intended to debunk the methods of so-called "Creation scientists", not to test the origin of birds. Without context, one could easily read this as supporting a divine origin of birds separate from dinosaurs, which was the opposite of Senter's conclusion. MMartyniuk (talk) 04:40, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

If you could not see the relevance and if you thought it misrepresented the study's conclusion, all you had to do was ask me. We even have this page itself set up for just such conversations. Instead you unilaterally and highhandedly deleted it because you had a contrary opinion. Have you been set up as the final judge on these matters on this subject? I will review the passage that I posted, modify it to address your concerns and re-post. If you still have reservations about it discuss it with me - do not highhandedly delete it. I am working in a respectful and collegial manner. I expect you to do likewise. Pterosaurus (talk) 14:03, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Instead of re-posting in the article, why not post it here for discussion first if you're trying to be collegial? And could you explain what point you were attempting to make with the entry before going to the trouble of re-writing it? MMartyniuk (talk) 22:35, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Merge with Origins of Birds

I'm not sure why this is a separate article than Origins of Birds any thoughts?--Ollyoxenfree (talk) 22:07, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

It is true that there is not much unique content in this article, and I suppose it could be merged to Origin of birds. However, it makes sense to keep the two articles: one is about the origin (with speculation), and the other is about developments since then. Johnuniq (talk) 03:50, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

The "origin of birds" article documents the history of theories about bird origins in a historical way (ie it is more like a history of science article) and is useful for keeping an account of these historical developments separate from this - evolution of birds - page, which is an overview of the current understanding of bird evolution. Both are useful in different (though connected) ways, and I think both should be kept. Orbitalforam (talk) 16:50, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Minor Changes/Addition

Hello, I don't mean to be bothersome, but shouldn't "phylogenies" be "phylogenetics" near the end of the first paragraph? I tried changing it, but it was undone. I also thought that a specific example of birds adapting to human actions in the "Current evolutionary trends in birds" section would be nice, but that was undone as well. Would this be acceptable?(Zach Winkler (talk) 18:46, 23 January 2011 (UTC))

Hmmm... there's a few little problems here. The section addition you wrote on the New Caledonian crow is referenced by a site that uses copyrighted material from another source (like YouTube), and this is no good as a source for Wikipedia. In fact, the content of the reference you cited has already been removed because it belonged to the BBC, and the site you listed was forced to remove it. Also, not to sound harsh, but it really pays to do some minor grammar-checking before you add something: "placing nuts infront of on-comming traffic" has a mistake or two; and... well, it doesn't matter, because the reference is bad. This means your edit should be removed as original research unless a proper source can be found to back it up. In any case, the ref itself needs to be removed and the spelling mistakes should be cleaned up. Any takers? Cheers :> Doc talk 06:50, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I removed the refrence and smoothed-out the grammar, but I kept the link to "evolutionary history" and "evolution of reptiles" if that is fine. Sorry for the mistkes, I am new to this and trying my best to help. Thank-you for the assistance! (Zach Winkler (talk) 19:32, 28 January 2011 (UTC))

No problem! And again, just because that one source was bad doesn't mean there aren't sources that fully support what you wrote about the New Caledonian crow: I'm positive they are out there. Just keep digging to find an acceptable source and it's in! Cheers :> Doc talk 23:10, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Outdated

According to this website, this article may be outdated. I will be putting up the "Outdated" banner at the top of the page. I do not want it to be deleted until the article is updated. 72.188.94.43 (talk) 12:57, 25 February 2011 (UTC)Adam72.188.94.43 (talk) 12:57, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Ruben's infamous for his "birds cannot be dinosaurs" line. See here for instance. He's not representative of paleontologists as a whole. Evercat (talk) 20:01, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Not Found-The requested URL /birds_cannot_be_dinosaurs.php was not found on this server. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.67.186.10 (talk) 21:43, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Evercat. It would be absurd to call an article outdated because a website supporting a fringe viewpoint doesn't like it. It is widely considered that the "Birds are not dinosaurs" perspective is outdated and incorrect.Orbitalforam (talk) 17:53, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Time line

Does anyone have an illustration of a timeline of the evolution of birds? This article could realy use one. Thanks! 62.12.14.24 (talk) 12:21, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

How about an amphibian ancestry?

I have birds at my house. Two lovebirds and an African Grey Parrot. A joy but incredibly messy. The parrots feathers are like fish scales, forehead and eyes resemble a dolphin as do the lovebirds eyes and foreheads( I have the dutch blue with green variant. I think the descent from dinosaurs has been followed but has anyone looked into the amphibian angle? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.80.141.5 (talk) 18:47, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Relationships between animals were traditionally worked out by a whole range of physical features, but in modern days also by DNA comparisons. Modern amphibians are actually about as unrelated to birds as its possible for a tetrapod to be. Evercat (talk) 21:14, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Discussion on title of taxon evolution pages

Hi, There is a thread here you may be interested in, about a consistent naming for articles dealing with evolution of taxa. Thanks! --Cyclopia^talk 17:11, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

CAUTIONARY WARNING REGARDING BIRD FOSSILS:

http://www.paleodirect.com/fakechinesefossils1.htm SUPERHETRODYNE (talk) 15:41, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Yes, fossils sometimes get faked and politicians sometimes don't tell the truth. Any other news? (No need to shout, by the way ...)Orbitalforam (talk) 16:43, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

Update needed regarding ratites?

Under the section "Adaptive radiation of modern birds" appears the following:

The paleognaths include the tinamous (found only in Central and South America) and the ratites, which nowadays are found almost exclusively on the Southern Hemisphere. The ratites are large flightless birds, and include ostriches, rheas, cassowaries, kiwis and emus. A few scientists propose that the ratites represent an artificial grouping of birds which have independently lost the ability to fly in a number of unrelated lineages. In any case, the available data regarding their evolution is still very confusing, partly because there are no uncontroversial fossils from the Mesozoic.

(Emphasis supplied.) Recent DNA evidence shows that the kiwi is more closely related to the extinct Malagasy elephant bird than to its neighbor the moa, indicating that the kiwi's ancestor flew to New Zealand and lost its wings there, and that the moa became flightless through an independent evolutionary process. See, e.g., Kiwi. Doesn't that support the "few scientists" referred to here, and shouldn't the article be revised accordingly? J. D. Crutchfield | Talk 20:41, 9 June 2014 (UTC)

No, because the argument of the "few scientists" is not just that flight was lost independently by these different groups of Notopalaeognathae – rather than being inherited from a flightless common ancestor of all the Palaeognathae – but that they are not related. However, the DNA evidence shows that they are related, even though they independently lost flight after dispersal.

The Ratites are an artificial (polyphyletic) grouping to an extent, insamuch as they include all the flightless orders of all these groups, but exclude the flighted Tinamous which are the sole surviving flighted order of one of the groups. (The terminology gets confusing because it mixes traditional Linnaean ranks with the cladistic nomenclature that is still in the process of superseding them – the two systems do not always match one-to-one). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.211.130.104 (talk) 11:56, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

Sentence in lead

The lead states: "On 31 July 2014, scientists reported details of the evolution of birds from theropod dinosaurs." This is confusing given that this is not a recent development. Why the extremely specific date given to this sentence? What were the "details" being reported? And why is this sentence in the intro at all? 73.223.96.73 (talk) 21:04, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

Archaeopteryx image

Can the image in the article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeopteryx be added to the article? The Archaeopteryx article image shows the indentations of feathers, which the image in the Evolution of birds article does only faintly? --Jcardazzi (talk) 15:32, 25 July 2015 (UTC)jcardazzi

Birds evolved from saurischian, carnivorous dinosaur. But how did the herbivorous birds appeared?

I wonder that birds evolved from lizard-hipped dinosaurs, but how could the herbivorous bird such as parrots, hoatzin and hummingbirds appeared? How about the ornithischian Bird-hipped Pachycephalosauria ancestry for herbivorous birds? Line 8 the Pink (talk) 22:58, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

See the article on Therizinosaurs. 98.67.186.10 (talk) 21:38, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Such dietary adaptations can appear on relatively short timescales. Consider the Giant Panda, which is almost entirely vegetarian despite being a member of the mostly omnivorous Family Ursidae which is part of the Order Carnivora, and having an essentially carnivorous digestive tract. Giant Pandas seemingly became herbivorous only some 2-3 million years ago, whereas birds as a whole have had more than 160 million years to diversify. The Hummingbird article you yourself linked states that they only evolved around 42 million years ago, from insectivorous swifts. The articles on Hoazin and Parrots also cite evidence for their having evolved from other birds since the end-Cretaceous extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs 65.8 mya. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.200.136.117 (talk) 22:31, 18 December 2016 (UTC)